Women’s Sailing Festival: mother and daughter team up, Italian architect finds her dream in Hong Kong and two para sailors fuel their passion
- Yani Lam teams up with daughter See-sun for the first time for the women’s regatta, while Mirna Zordan is competing a year after taking up sailing
- Angel Leung, who suffers from muscular dystrophy, says sailing gives her a new lease of life while ex-shooter Sylvia Leung is thriving in her new sport
A mother and daughter success story, an Italian architect who fulfilled her dream in Hong Kong, a former para pistol shooter who switched sports, and a women with muscular dystrophy who was able to pilot a boat on her own – these are among the participants in The Capital Company Women’s Sailing Festival in Hong Kong, which starts this weekend at the Hebe Haven Yacht Club,
Local and overseas enthusiasts will come together for 10 days of water sports, seminars, training, fun and regattas. Organised by the Hebe Haven Yacht Club and Sailability Hong Kong, the festival is aimed at celebrating women in sailing, with organisers hoping to encourage more girls and women to take up the sport.
Angel Leung On-ki and Sylvia Leung Chuk-yun, who are part of the Sailability programme, and Yani Lam Yan-yan and Italian Mirna Zordan are among the women who are expected to play prominent roles during the festival. Here are their stories:
Poignant story of mother and daughter has Yani Lam going from ‘zero to hero’
Yani Lam didn’t like sailing initially. She only took up the sport to prove something to her daughter, a special education needs (SEN) student who was falling behind in her studies and was just starting her own sailing journey. More than four years later, Lam is a qualified dinghy and powerboat instructor and her daughter, See-sun, is excelling at academics and has earned a sports scholarship at a prominent secondary school. Her story is described as “zero to hero” in the sailing community.
Lam realised See-sun was struggling as a SEN student in a normal school and encouraged her to take up a sport. She wanted to look “outside the box” so decided on sailing. After an encouraging start, See-sun started to struggle and was on the verge of giving up. Lam had been hospitalised several times and felt that See-sun may perceive her as weak. So she set up a challenge for her daughter.